PubMed HealthSearch

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Child physical abuse”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Hospitalization for child physical abuse before hospitalization for osteogenesis imperfecta or severe hemophilia: A nationwide cohort study in France.

BACKGROUND: Timely and accurate diagnosis of early child physical abuse (CPA) is crucial to avoid recurrence and protect victims. Ruling out differential diagnoses is also important to avoid misdiagnosis of CPA. We evaluated the risk of hospitalization for early CPA before hospitalization for its 2 main differential diagnoses: osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) and severe hemophilia (SH). METHODS: This population-based cohort study used the national administrative database covering all hospitals in France. We followed infants born from 2010 to 2019 until age 2. We identified infants with a first discharge code for early CPA, OI, and SH and calculated crude absolute and relative risks. RESULTS: Among the 6,315,216 infants included, 2088 (33/100,000 infants per year) were hospitalized for early CPA, 160 (3/100,000) for OI, and 402 (6/100,000) for SH before age 2. Among infants hospitalized for early CPA, 2085 (99.86 %) had no further hospitalization for OI or SH, 3 (0.14 %) were further hospitalized for OI with a 9-month median interval between hospitalizations, and 0 were further hospitalized for SH. The absolute risk of hospitalization for early CPA before hospitalization for OI was 1.9 % (3/160, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.39-5.38), and the relative risk as compared with infants without hospitalization for OI was 56.8 (95 % CI 18.5-174.3). CONCLUSIONS: The very low to null absolute risks of hospitalization for early CPA before OI or SH probably reflect excellent current clinical practices in ruling out differential diagnoses. A better implementation of existing guidelines could further shorten the time to diagnosis of OI before age 2.

Humans

Developmental retardation in infants as a concomitant of physical child abuse.

The impact of child abuse on the developmental functioning of infants was investigated. Thirty verified cases of physically abused children were compared to a reference group of 30 nonabused children matched for age, sex, race, and socioeconomic status. Abused children scored significantly lower in terms of cognitive and motor development as measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Development delays on three of the four sectors of the Denver Developmental Screening Test, personal-social, language, and gross motor, were also found in the abused children. There were, however, relatively few item differences between the two groups on the 30 more general behavioral variables constituting the Bayley Infant Behavior Record. Results appear to confirm clinical observation of abused children as developmentally retarded with specific delays in the language and gross motor areas. Although methodologically complex, longitudinal studies are clearly indicated to assess the stability and/or reversibility of the present findings.

Child Abuse

The cutaneous manifestations of child abuse and neglect.

The most easily recognizable physical manifestations of child abuse and neglect are seen in the skin. The findings may be the result of intentional trauma, neglect to provide adequate child care, alterations in family dynamics, or the emotional problems secondary to the maltreatment.

Affective Symptoms

Collateral therapy for the abused child and the problem parent.

Physical or sexual abuse of children is a psychopathic situation wherein both the abused child and the problem parent require collateral therapy with the eventual aim of rehabilitating the family by reinstating the child. The abusive diathesis of the parent is rooted in her or his inadequately nurtured childhood.

Affective Symptoms

Preventing the abuse of little children: The Parents' Center Project for the study and prevention of child abuse.

Forty-six families with 73 children between the ages of six months and four years were treated in a project developed to preserve the integrity of the family while protecting the child from physical abuse. Improvement in the rate of growth and development was found among the children. There was much less improvement in the domestic functioning of their parents. However, it appeared that the parents would not have kept their children in the project if they had not been in concurrent treatment.

Adult

Child abuse.

Child abuse is an emotional topic, and one which features frequently in newspapers. Newspapers, however, tend to report only the most serious cases and those which have been the subject of court hearings. The reporting tends to concentrate on lurid details. In fact, there is a wide spectrum of child abuse encompassing physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, and ranging in severity from the most minor incident through to injuries sufficient to cause death.

Adult

Compassion vs control. Conceptual and practical pitfalls in the broadened definition of child abuse.

A broadened understanding of child abuse has enabled practitioners to think of the parents of abused children not as evil murderers but as human beings caught in a complex web of social isolation and deprivation. Concomitantly, child abuse laws have changed dramatically in the last decade to include virtually all childhood physical symptoms of family crisis; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and child neglect are now reportable by nearly all professionals who have contact with children. There has been a dramatic increase in case reports, but the services for which families become eligible do not approach the humane rhetoric and intent of child abuse legislation. Society and the helping professions are caught in a dilemma that we characterize and address clinically as compassion vs control.

Attitude

Child abuse in terms of a public health model.

A public health model for child abuse has been developed to assist in investigating and understanding the multiple factors in causation of the problem and in designing appropriate intervention strategies. The parents responsible for abuse of the child are viewed as the host, the physical and social setting in which the abuse occurred as the environment, and the child is seen as the agent. The vector is conceptualized as influences affecting relations between host and agent. Intervention strategies relate to identification of high-risk parents, high-risk environments and high-risk children, as well as development of non-specific approaches applicable to all three.

Adult

[The battered child syndrome. Preliminary review in a Bolivian pediatric hospital].

Taking into account the prevalence of child abuse in countries with different socioeconomic levels, the authors review this entity through the casuistics in a Bolivian pediatric hospital. Besides confirming unquestionable clinical findings, it was observed that among twenty-seven cases there was a predominance in preschool and school age children, in contrast with previous papers. The finding of three children with burns of various degrees and two cases who died as consequence of child abuse must be emplasized. The authors comment the varying forms of this syndrome according with foregoing Occidental publications, accepting that non-physical forms should require prospective researches in order to define a creditable prevalence and incidence of child abuse in an exposed population.

Battered Child Syndrome

Child molestation.

Sexually molested children are thought to be more common than battered children but, like rape, cases of child molestation are greatly underreported. Physical trauma occurs frequently, including vaginoperineal tears and head injuries. The child's father is frequently the offender. In nearly one-half of the cases, the abuse occurs repeatedly. Physicians must be aware of the potential physical and emotional damage and must be prepared to offer gentle care, effective support and appropriate counseling.

Adult

Sexual Abuse in Girls Aged ≤14: A Retrospective Observational Swiss Study.

INTRODUCTION: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a critical public health concern with enduring physical and psychological consequences. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to describe the sociodemographic profiles, contextual circumstances, and clinical findings of reported CSA cases involving girls aged ≤14, recorded between 2018 and 2021 at two university hospitals in Switzerland: Lausanne University Hospital (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois - CHUV) and Geneva University Hospitals (Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève - HUG) to inform prevention and intervention strategies. METHODS: This retrospective observational study included 95 cases identified through forensic consultations at CHUV and HUG. All eligible cases recorded between 2018 and 2021 were analyzed. Collected data included sociodemographic characteristics, assault circumstances, perpetrator-victim relationship, and clinical findings. RESULTS: The median age of children exposed to sexual assault was 7 years (IQR 4-14). Intra-familial abuse predominated among premenarcheal girls (41.7%), while postmenarcheal girls were more frequently assaulted by non-familial perpetrators (76.2%) and experienced higher rates of physical violence (47.6%). Genital lesions were documented in 41% of cases, with a higher prevalence among younger patients, and were rarely specific to CSA. CONCLUSION: This study provides a detailed descriptive overview of CSA cases involving girls aged ≤14 in two Swiss cantons. It highlights age-related patterns in perpetrator profiles, assault characteristics, and clinical findings. Prevention strategies should be age-specific, addressing intra-familial risk in younger children and peer-related or situational vulnerabilities in adolescents. These findings support the implementation of standardized forensic practices, improved surveillance systems, and targeted prevention and care strategies.

Child sexual abuse Intra-familial abuse Pediatric

Understanding the effects of child abuse.

Child abuse is one of the difficult social phenomena with which the technologist directly deals as a part of his professional responsibilities. To be able to respond to all of the child's needs, radiologic technologists need to understand not only the physical effects, but also the psychological effects of the child. Understanding also helps the technologist deal with his own feelings when interacting with either the abused child or the child's parents. The Draw-A-Person test (DAP) was utilized in this study to illustrate visually the effect of abuse on the child's self-image. The subsequent personality characteristics of these children include low self-esteem, withdrawal, extreme forms of impulse control, and self-destructive behavior. Using the DAP, the abused child's self-portrait frequently showed body distortion, lack of detailing and poor sexual identification. In addition, the personality pattern of abusing parents was found to have many of the same characteristics as the personalities of abused children, because many times abusing parents were themselves abused as children.

Child

Mediators of the Association Between a Parent's Experience of Trauma and Their Children's Well-Being: A Systematic Review.

At present, our understanding of trauma's complexity is underdeveloped, particularly with regard to intergenerational effects. In this paper, we review peer-reviewed literature on parental trauma and child well-being, focusing on mediating factors. We conducted a global systematic review of longitudinal, observational studies assessing mediators between a parent's traumatic exposure and their children's well-being. The primary outcome of the review was quantitative measures of child well-being (physical and psycho-social) assessed when the child was 18 years or under. We considered the following experiences as trauma exposures: intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault, victimization during violent crime, childhood abuse, and exposure to direct, immediate threats to personal survival during war, political unrest, natural disasters, and sudden, critical injury/illness. Thirty-two studies met our inclusion criteria. The two most common mediator categories were caregiver mental health (n = 13) and parenting behavior (n = 10). Other studies measured aspects of the parent-child relationship (n = 9), maternal stress factors (n = 5), parental physical health (n = 2), and child-level factors (n = 6) as mediators. Almost all included studies (n = 28) detected a mediation effect. The majority of studies (n = 21) cited robust theoretical frameworks to support their mediator and outcome choices. Studies varied in quality, but most used appropriate, formal mediation analyses. Several study designs could be enhanced by methods to improve precision and reduce bias. Currently, there is little consistency in how similar constructs are measured between mediation studies. We did not locate any studies in low-income countries, and few studies examined aspects of family dynamics, physical health, environmental characteristics, or paternal factors.

Humans

Long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse: An umbrella review of diagnostic meta-analyses.

BACKGROUND: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a public health issue with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 12.7%, potentially leading to a host of lifelong and significant mental, physical, and behavioral health. The aim of this study was to comprehensively map the long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse on physical, psychiatric, and behavioral health outcomes. METHODS: An umbrella review of meta-analyses of observational studies, registered on PROSPERO, was conducted to examine the diverse repercussions of childhood sexual abuse on adult health. Three bibliographic databases (PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus) were searched from the inception of the respective databases to November 1st, 2022. Thirty-eight meta-analyses representing about 20 million individuals were analyzed, revealing a range of long-lasting consequences associated with CSA. RESULTS: Among physical pathologies, cervical cancer and functional neurological syndromes emerged as the most prominent, exhibiting significantly elevated odds ratios (ORs) of 4.18 IC95% and 3.30 IC95%, respectively. Sleep disorders and borderline personality disorders were the most prevalent mental health disorders associated with CSA, with respective ORs of 16.17 IC95% and 5.96 IC95%. Early sexual initiation (OR=3.59 IC95%, sexual assault (OR=3.36 IC95%, and prostitution (OR=3.24 IC95%) emerged as the most common behavioral consequences. Notably, no significant differences in the consequences of CSA were observed between men and women, except for reproductive health outcomes. DISCUSSION: When faced with certain pathologies, clinicians should consider and discuss sexual abuse with their patients. The consequences of abuse have a multifactorial origin, which is a weakness, as are the problems of defining abuse. The strength of our study is that it lists the consequences published in high-quality studies. CONCLUSION: This umbrella review provides compelling evidence of the profound and far-reaching impact of childhood sexual abuse on a broad spectrum of physical, mental, and behavioral health issues.

Humans